Internetters Asking If Roberts Flipped At The Last Minute

Conservatives are having a difficult time accepting that Chief Justice John Roberts voted the way he did on the Affordable Care Act. One theory is that he changed his position at the last minute.

Perhaps the country will never know, but legal experts have seized on a string of passages in the dissent that indicate their opinion was originally written as the majority ruling — one that would have struck down the law in its entirety.

Theories abound as to what clues the dissent offers. Did the minority justices simply set out to write their opinion with the confidence of a majority, without ever having five justices on board? Or did Roberts flip, perhaps under pressure to let stand an historic piece of legislation and/or battle the perception of the high court as partisan?

“I suspect … the chief switched very late in the game,” constitutional lawyer David Rivkin told FoxNews.com.

Among the clues:

The fact that the dissent repeatedly referred to liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s argument as the “dissent,” suggesting she was at one time in the minority.

The commanding tone of the conservative justices’ language.

The way the dissent addresses the pivotal issue of whether the law’s so-called individual mandate penalty can count as a tax.